AIG bailout means facials, pedicures
Posted
Oct 07 2008, 02:42 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
First off, I apologize if this post makes you throw up. Got a trash can handy? Here we go....
Remember that $85 billion government bailout of insurance company AIG? Surely executives there must be under the gun, working all hours to dig the company out of trouble. Our taxpayer dollars demand that, right?
Nope. Less than a week after getting the $85 billion commitment, AIG execs went on a week-long retreat at the luxurious St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif. The trip cost AIG almost half a million dollars, including $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 in spa charges.
Sometimes, after you've worked hard at running a company into the ground, only a pedicure will do. Oh, and a stiff drink. The tab also included $25,000 in "leisure dining," also known as drinking in bars.
Documents uncovering the AIG vacation came out today during a hearing on Capitol Hill.
"If a company is drowning and you're going to spend that kind of money, that's crazy," said one Congressman during the hearing. "The American people are paying for that."
"This unbridled greed," said another. "It's an insensitivity to how people are spending our dollars."
AIG has some explaining to do. But for some reason Congress didn't get any current executives to show up.
The only defense -- a laughable one at that -- came from Eric Dinallo, head of New York State's insurance department.
The worst thing that could have happened after the bailout was for AIG employees to flee the company, Dinallo said. "There was a thinking that they needed to bring everyone together," he said, according to Dealbreaker. "This was not a crazy corporate decision."
There you have it. Bailout be damned; the Wall Street mentality has not changed.
Click here to see pictures of the St. Regis resort.
